Ms Hussein scared over reactions to female genital mutilation

A Londoner who suffered female genital mutilation has warned that political correctness is hampering the fight to stamp it out after asking people to sign a fake petition in its favour.

Leyla Hussein, 32, said many were scared to speak out against FGM because they were worried about criticising another culture.

She decided to conduct an experiment to see “how crazy political correctness has become” but was left in tears by the end.

Approaching shoppers with the petition supporting FGM, she told them she wanted to protect her “culture, traditions and rights”.

In only 30 minutes 19 people signed it with some saying they believed FGM was wrong but because it was part of Ms Hussein’s culture they would add their names. Only one person refused to sign.

Her campaign against FGM is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, The Cruel Cut, which features the shocking scenes where she asks people to sign the petition.

Speaking after the experiment in Northampton, Ms Hussein broke down and said she was scared by people’s reactions.

“I kept using the word ‘it’s just mutilation’. They were like ‘yes, you are right’. How can anyone think that’s okay?”

She added: “FGM is not culture, it is violence. Stop using the culture word. This is happening to children. We are human beings, we can’t watch children being cut, I don’t care what culture you belong to.”

Ms Hussein, who is co-founder of the anti-FGM charity Daughters of Eve, is calling on the Home Office to take responsibility for drawing up an action plan to eliminate FGM in this country.

No single government department has responsibility for ending FGM. Instead, work is shared between the Home Office, departments of Health and Education, the Ministry of Justice and Crown Prosecution Service. The documentary follows Ms Hussein as she tries to secure an interview with Home Secretary Theresa May, and features the upsetting stories of a group of FGM survivors living in the UK, some of whom have been left wetting the bed or unable to have children.

It also highlights the impact that articles published in the Evening Standard have had on the fight against FGM. More than 66,000 women in the UK have already undergone FGM and about 24,000 girls are at risk.

Although the practice has been outlawed in Britain since 1985, it is still carried out. Victims are typically from families who moved to the UK from countries such as Somalia, Sudan, Senegal and Egypt, where it is widespread. Ms Hussein, who was cut when she was seven in Somalia, said: “Four women held me down and cut my clitoris. I felt every single cut. I was screaming so much I just blacked out.”

The documentary, to be broadcast next week, comes after public health minister Jane Ellison warned that vulnerable girls were being failed because people do not want to be seen as “culturally insensitive”.

In an interview with the Evening Standard she said: “Because of that caution, bizarrely we’ve ended up protecting these vulnerable girls the least.” Ms Ellison condemned FGM as child abuse and said she was determined to end decades of failure to protect women.

The Cruel Cut will be shown on Channel 4 on Wednesday, November 6 at 10.45pm.

Does anyone else feel that this is just going too far.. especially this part:

The documentary, to be broadcast next week, comes after public health minister Jane Ellison warned that vulnerable girls were being failed because people do not want to be seen as “culturally insensitive”.

Approaching shoppers with the petition supporting FGM, she told them she wanted to protect her “culture, traditions and rights”.

In only 30 minutes 19 people signed it with some saying they believed FGM was wrong but because it was part of Ms Hussein’s culture they would add their names. Only one person refused to sign.

This seems to be seriously messed up. Why are people so afraid of criticizing?

In this day of trying to respect other cultures. This isn't shocking. It's wrong, but I find it not a shock that people don't want to offend people's culture. People can get really stirred up if you offend their culture.

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Also, it's supremely idiotic to tell someone something is part of your culture and then be horrified that they think... it's part of your culture. It's better that people be too slow to change things about another culture than too fast, but as it is it's illegal in the UK and even most of Africa, so short of conquering Africa to impose better order on them, I'm not really sure what you want people to do. Nothing gets fixed by sitting on your ass at home and crying about the indignity of it all when it occurs in a country that barely has a government to speak of. If you're super horrified that it happens in the UK, then again, not sure what to tell you as making things illegal is the best they or anyone else can do and it has yet to stop all crime.

Also worth noting that not all forms of mutilation are considered a violation of human rights, so again, her own fault for downplaying what it really is.

Swooping in and making over other cultures in your image because it's "right" is absolutely heinous.

I get that this is a Tilli thread, but are you really attempting to justify genital mutilation because it has a cultural history? So did incest, cannibalism, nepotism, racism, xenophobia and poor dental hygiene. Good lord man.

I get that this is a Tilli thread, but are you really attempting to justify genital mutilation because it has a cultural history? So did incest, cannibalism, nepotism, racism, xenophobia and poor dental hygiene. Good lord man.

One word: Rowanda.

And this thread is built upon racism, or more specifically the belief you can judge other cultures because you're superior.

I get that this is a Tilli thread, but are you really attempting to justify genital mutilation because it has a cultural history? So did incest, cannibalism, nepotism, racism, xenophobia and poor dental hygiene. Good lord man.

The problem is "female genital mutilation" quickly becomes "female circumcision" in a semantics debate and because of that most people think that "female circumcision" sounds ok (regardless of if circumcision itself is ok or not). It isn't and it shouldn't be.

It also seems like people are beginning to see Tilli as the resident MMO-Champion racist. Not a thing to be proud of by any stretch.

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